Permanent Record

by Mary H.K. Choi

Honestly, it scares me the way I end up living out the aftermath of decisions I don’t remember making.

forget what you heard about lobster mac and cheese and bottles of Moscato, because if there’s anything that separates the one percent from the rest of us it’s the mattresses.

“No finite moment is responsible for my success. There wasn’t a fork in the road. Some monumental inflection point where my life changed. It was the accumulation

of totally normal, regular-ass days where I worked hard, followed my better instincts, and did the right thing. You don’t get to start over every day; you get to keep going.”

It is honestly so terrifying—so intolerably humiliating—to want anything and to declare it. I fling open my window and look out.

“Nothing that is a manifestation of your creative energies is stupid,” he says. “Doing nothing is the only stupid.”

Life isn’t a destination. It’s the continual practice of things that make you wiser and happier.

It’s amazing what time can’t do.

And everyone who reminds me that art is not linear. And that expectations are nothing more than planned resentments.